Peter Tremayne - Act of Mercy

‘A curious morning, lady,’ he said as he joined her. She could seethat he was looking irritated. ‘Have you ever seen the like of this before?’

‘Up in the mountains occasionally,’ she nodded.

‘So you would,’ agreed Murchad. ‘Yet it should clear away soon. The sun should rise and its warmth ought to dispel the mist.’ He was making no move to continue on below decks. ‘How did you fare during the blow?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Blow?’ Then Fidelma remembered that this was the sailors’ term for the storm. ‘I eventually fell asleep but more from exhaustion than anything.’

Murchad let out a long sigh.

‘It was a bad blow. The storm has driven me a half-day or more off my course. We’ve been pushed south-east — far more easterly than I was intending.’ He seemed preoccupied and far from happy.

‘Is that a problem?’ Fidelma queried. ‘Surely no one is worried about an extra day or so on this voyage.’

‘It’s not that …’ He hesitated.

Fidelma was bewildered by his hesitancy and his seeming reluctance to join the others below.

‘What’s wrong then, Murchad?’ she pressed.

‘I am afraid … we have lost a passenger.’

Fidelma stared at him in incomprehension. ‘Lost a passenger? You mean one of the pilgrims? How, lost?’

‘Overboard,’ he elaborated laconically.

Fidelma was shocked.

After a pause, Murchad added: ‘You did the right thing by remaining in your cabin during the blow, lady. Passengers have no right to be on deck when such a sea is running. I will have to lay down a rule that this is so. I have never lost anyone overboard before.’

‘Who was it?’ Fidelma asked breathlessly. ‘How did it happen?’

Murchad raised his shoulders and let them fall in an eloquent shrug, disclaiming knowledge.

‘How? That I don’t know. No one saw anything.’

‘Then how do you know that they were lost overboard?’

‘Brother Cian suggested it.’

Fidelma drew her brows together.

‘What does he have to do with it?’

‘He came to see me just after dawn. Apparently he feels that he should be in charge of all the pilgrims on board this ship — be their spokesman.’

Fidelma sniffed disparagingly.

‘You may rest assured that he has no authority to speak for me ,’ she said tightly.

Murchad did not take any notice. He went on, ‘After the storm, he took it upon himself to go round and see if everyone was all right. He even went to your cabin.’

‘He did not check on me.’

‘Begging your pardon, lady,’ Murchad contradicted. ‘He said he looked into your cabin but saw that you were still asleep.’

So that was what had awoken her! The soft sound of a door shutting. She felt anger and a sense of violation that Cian, of all people, had entered her cabin and looked on her while she slept.

‘Go on, then.’ She decided that she would make very sure that, in future, Cian did not have such easy access to her cabin again.

‘Well, he found that one of the party was nowhere to be seen. Their cabin was deserted. When he came to me and told me his fears, I ordered Gurvan to conduct a thorough search of the ship. He found nothing. I have how sent him to double-check.’

So that explained Gurvan’s curious visit to her cabin a few moments ago. As if thinking of him had caused him to be drawn to them, Gurvan came swinging along the deck.

Murchad gazed anxiously at him. The first mate shook his head at the captain’s unasked question.

‘Stem to stern, skipper. No sign.’ Gurvan was not a man who believed in wasting words.

Murchad turned back to Fidelma with a mournful look.

‘That was our last chance. I had hoped that she might have become so scared of the storm that she had found some hole on board ship to hide in.’

Fidelma felt somewhat deflated. It was not an auspicious beginning to the pilgrimage. The first night out from Ardmore and a pilgrim lost overboard.

‘Who was it?’ she asked. ‘Who is the missing person?’

‘It is Sister Muirgel. We’d better get below, for the others are breaking their fast. I’d best give them this sad news of their companion. I do not want to lose any more passengers on this voyage.’

He dismissed Gurvan to look after the running of the ship while he went below. Fidelma was feeling shocked as she followed him down the companionway.

Yesterday, Sister Muirgel could barely raise her head from her bunk; she had been so sick and ill. The idea that, in the middle of such a terrifying storm, the pale-faced young woman had been able to leaveher cabin, climb up on deck unnoticed and then get swept overboard was startling in the extreme.

In the mess-deck cabin, young Wenbrit was serving a meal of bread, cold meats and fruit to the pilgrims who had gathered there. Fidelma immediately noticed that Brother Bairne had now joined the company. There was a muttered greeting, not hearty in the circumstances, as Fidelma took her seat and Murchad went to the head of the table. Everyone had obviously been told about the missing Sister Muirgel. Cian was the first to ask the news from Murchad. The captain addressed the entire assembly.

‘I am afraid that I have some very bad news for you,’ the captain began. ‘I can confirm that Sister Muirgel is no longer on board. A thorough search has been made of the vessel. No other explanation remains except that she was washed overboard in the night during the storm.’

There was a grim silence among those at the table. Then one of the religieuses, Fidelma thought it was the broad-faced Sister Crella, made a sound like a suppressed sob.

‘I have never lost a passenger before,’ Murchad continued, in a heavy tone. ‘I do not intend to lose another. Therefore, I am forced to tell you again that you must remain in your cabins, or below decks, should any further bad weather strike. Then you will only come on deck at my specific orders. In calm weather, of course, you may come on deck but only when one of my men is there to keep a watchful eye on you.’

The red-haired Brother Adamrae was frowning.

‘We are adults, Captain, not children,’ he protested. ‘We paid for our passage, we did not expect to be confined as if we were … criminals.’ He had paused a moment to search out a suitable word.

Cian was nodding in agreement.

‘Brother Adamrae does have a point, Captain.’

‘You are not trained sailors,’ Murchad countered brusquely. ‘The deck of a ship can be treacherous in bad weather unless you know what you are doing.’

Cian flushed with annoyance.

‘Not all of us have spent our lives closeted within abbey walls. I was a warrior and-’

The grim-faced Brother Tola raised his voice in interruption to add to the debate.

‘Because a silly woman who, by all accounts, was too sick to know what she was doing, went on deck when she should not and was lost overboard, surely there is no need to make us all suffer?’

There was an angry exclamation from Sister Crella. She sprang up, leaning across the table.

‘Apologise for those words, Brother Tola! Muirgel was the daughter of nobility before whom, if you did not wear that brown homespun robe, you would have to fall on your knees as they walked by you. Muirgel was my cousin and my friend. How dare you insult her?’ Her voice had risen hysterically.

Sister Ainder, tall and commanding, rose and, without any apparent effort, drew Crella from the table and led her away to the cabins, making strange noises like a mother comforting her child.

Brother Tola sat looking uncomfortable at the reaction he had provoked.

‘What I meant to say was that we paid our passage money, as Brother Adamrae has said. What if we refuse to obey this order?’